Oktoberfest 2007 (Day 5, Thursday): rally, concours-prep, sightsee

FORT WORTH, Tex. (Thursday) -- Greetings again from Fort Worth. At Oktoberfest, Thursday can be a down day--unless you’re a rallyist or a Serious Concours Person. I’m neither, so Carol and I spent some time seeing the sights around downtown Fort Worth. Lots of interesting turn-of-the-century buildings, the Water Park and historic marker everywhere. We learned that Sundance Square—where the host Hilton Hotel is located—got it’s name from…you guessed it, the Sundance Kid (sounds better than Butch Cassidy Square, doesn’t it?). In it’s day as the kickoff point for the Chisholm Trail, all sorts of interesting characters either passed through Fort Worth or resided here. Folks like Wyatt Earp, Doc Halliday and other Western characters.

While we relaxed, others were busily engaged in the Oktoberfest TSD (Time-Speed-Distance) Rally, 2007 edition. A TSD rally is a competition run on public roads. This time, speed isn’t the point: the winning driver and navigator are the ones who have followed the written directions and maintained the mandated speeds so as to arrive at the route’s end exactly on time, having passed intermediate checkpoints at precisely the time shown in the instructions. As you can guess, it requires a navigator who can read directions, do math and gently tell the driver when he/she is off course. We’ll find out at tomorrow night’s banquet who won in the novice, unequipped and equipped classes.

Meanwhile, down at the wash pits, aspiring concours winners were busily chasing down the tiniest, most obscure bit of dirt and grime from their already clean cars. In a typical antique car show, judges look first at authenticity and condition, then cleanliness. In a concours, cleanliness and condition are paramount. Judges (and I’m one of ‘em) descend on the concours cars, looking for dirt in all the wrong places—behind the bumpers, on the back sides of wheels, on the pedals, under the seats. Found dirt equals lost points; the closer to 100 points a car stays, the better chance of winning a trophy.

As I write this late Thursday night, I’m confident that if I were to visit the wash pits, I’d find folks with their cars jacked up and wheels off, going after those last specks of dirt that we might find tomorrow. Hope it doesn’t rain (it’s not forecast).

This evening some twenty-odd club members from Iowa, Colorado, Idaho, Texas and Ohio drove up to the Sorrento, an Italian restaurant north of Denton. Several years ago, Iowa chapter members at Ofest began a tradition of meeting together for dinner one evening during the event. This year they invited new and old friends from other chapters to join ‘em for an evening of good food and camaraderie. These informal get-togethers are a lot of what Ofest is all about. Yeah, the events are great, so are the vendors and the receptions. But what it’s really about is friends, old and new--all with a shared interest in BMWs.

Tomorrow is the concours in the morning and early afternoon, and the banquet in the evening. Friday’s weather should be sunny and cloudless—and hot! But that’s better than cloudy and rain for a concours.

My last Ofest report will be tomorrow, along with some advance information on Ofest 2008--so you can start making your plans now.

Oktoberfest 2007 (Day 3, Tuesday): Mike Self’s blog from the autocross

FORT WORTH, Tex. (Tuesday) -- Tuesday dawned bright and early—not as early as it would have been if the autocross venue hadn’t changed from Mineral Wells Airport (40 miles from here) to the Fort Worth Cats ballfield parking lot (two miles away). I managed an extra hour of sleep. Today was the day for me to run the Bridgestone Tire-sponsored autocross.

An autocross is a twisty course laid out in a parking lot or other large paved expanse using orange traffic cones. Cars run the course one at a time, against the clock. The object is to get through the course as quickly and accurately as possible without going off course--hitting a cone gets you a one-second penalty per cone; off-course equals a DNF (did not finish). In most autocrosses, speeds rarely reach 35-40 mph, so the only wear to your car is to the tires. It’s a great way to learn just how well your BMW handles in a safe, controlled environment. Besides, you might win a trophy!

Monday the M cars ran the autocross; today was for the rest of us. Thirty-eight cars made an appearance—predominantly E36 and E46 3 Series. Three 318ti hatchbacks were there—one with an M3 motor cunningly slipped under the hood; several 5’s, an E90 335i (the current generation) sedan and a 645i coupe rounded out the recent machinery. The more historic end of the spectrum included a pewter grey metallic CS coupe, a solitary and quick E30i325 with a trick motor and (sob!) only a brace of 2002s—my carbureted ’73 and Fred Fernald’s 1974 2002tii.

Quick for a parking lot course
For a parking lot course it was long and pretty quick. This was a Texas-sized parking lot, after all. The local CCA chapter did a great job laying it out to dodge the numerous light poles that dotted the lot, and used lots of marker cones (those laid on their sides to indicate which direction you should drive) to keep drivers on course. Not that everyone did. At speed, it takes skill to see which way the arrow cones (the ones turned on edge as directional arrows) pointed.

First-timers at the autocross
Lots of first-time drivers were out today—I had a nice chat with Eve Dolenski, who with her husband David are attending their first full Ofest this year. They’re Michinana Chapter members who came down from Battle Creek in her 2002 325xi. Back home, Eve’s an engineer for Kellogg. Eve told me her job is to insure all the machinery at Kellogg’s frozen products plants is in tip top shape.

She had never run an autocross until today. When I asked her why she decided to try it for the first time, she said “I like going fast. Autocrossing allows me to explore my car’s limits safely.” She was a little skeptical about until reassured by an instructor that rode around the course with her on her first run. Later that afternoon, after eight runs, she was hooked—especially when she discovered she had beaten her husband by .2 second! David’s answer: “It’s her car; she should be faster in it.”

Even though it wasn’t my first autocross, I had at least as much fun. Each of my eight runs was faster than the previous one, I didn’t DNF, nor hit a single cone. And my now nicely broken-in engine (it was rebuilt last year) pulled very nicely indeed.

Michelin Tire reception
Lotsa good food at the Michelin-sponsored reception this evening, and a chance to visit with some of the vendors. Had a chance to talk with a couple of the guys from Griot’s Garage—they’re sponsoring this year’s Concours on Friday—about some really ugly spots that have appeared on the roof and deck lid of my ’02. They told me they’d take a look on Thursday. Hope they can tell me how to get rid of ‘em. [Buy a 135i, Mike. That’s BMW’s recommendation.--Ed]

Met some more first-timers tonight—I’ll tell you how they’re enjoying Ofest tomorrow. Now I have to rest up for Wednesday’s Gymkhana. Never heard of a gymkhana (no, not the horse show kind)? Tune in tomorrow.

Mike Self’s blog (Day 1 & 2): Finally, Fort Worth

FORT WORTH, Tex. (Monday) -- I’m here at Oktoberfest. This year it’s in Fort Worth—and if you’re not here, you’re missing the club’s annual fun week.

My wife Carol and I drove down from our home in Ohio in my trusty ’73 2002—a nice drive made nicer in a caravan with two new friends, Jon Strine and Lindsay Draime. Jon drove his ’91 318 from his home in Carlisle, Pa., Friday and joined up in Dayton (my home). Lindsay left his home in Battle Creek, Mich. —driving one of the 1,600-odd 530xi tourings built in 2006 -- and after visiting friends in Missouri, met us Saturday afternoon just past Memphis, Tenn.

After an overnight in Little Rock, it was on to Fort Worth Sunday morning. Jon’s car and mine were both flirting with 212,000 miles on their odometers, while Lindsay’s ’06 barely had 12k. Nonetheless, everything performed well on the trip, save my air conditioner, which decided not to play nicely. In order to insure domestic tranquility on the return trip, I’m going to have to do a little troubleshooting. Especially with Fort Worth temperatures hovering up near 90 and the host hotel havning some air conditioning challenges of its own.

Sunday night was the welcoming reception—a great time to greet old friends from Ofests past, and to meet new ones. Carol and I visited with Ken and Vicki Finley, whose journey from Houston was just a little shorter than ours. When Ofest visited Austin in 2003, Vicki said she was less than enthusiastic when Ken told her they were going take a whole week of vacation to go to a car event. “I thought I’d be bored—all this technical car stuff and car talk,” Vicki says, “but I was wrong.” She and Ken have made every Ofest since, except Pasadena. And she even found she liked the tech stuff!

Vendor reception
Monday was the vendors’ reception, held in—of course—the vendor area. More about the vendors Tuesday. Tonight [Monday] I was looking for folks sporting “First Time Ofest attendee” ribbons on their Ofest badges.

I spotted Harold Mead and Maggie Sullivan wearing said ribbons. Maggie reminded me that I had met them at TechFest earlier this year in Tacoma. They hail from Anacortes, Wash., and took the long way to Fort Worth—eight days, lots of back roads and nearly 3,200 miles in their ’97 M3. Harold is taking a well-deserved vacation from his import auto repair business—seeing how well the business can get along without him. Maggie is a carpenter back in Washington, but today tried her first autocross in Harold’s M3. She loved it—I think she may be hooked.

All the M cars ran the Bridgestone autocross today at the Mineral Wells Airport, but some unforseen scheduling conflicts have caused the Tuesday version to be moved to the parking lot at La Grave Field (Fort Worth Cats baseball park). Good for me, as Tuesday is my run group. La Grave Field is only a couple of miles from the hotel; Mineral Wells is 40 plus miles away. That means I won’t have to get up at 5 am to meet the 8 am drivers’ meeting.

Speaking of late, I’d best sign off for tonight—I’d hate to fall asleep during my autocross run Tuesday.

It doesn’t matter if this is your first Ofest, like Maggie and Harold, or if you’ve been to them all, like Michael Izor; you’re bound to have a good time—see old friends, make new friends, and share your interest—nay love—of BMWs.

Cheers from Fort Worth and Oktoberfest 2007,